for plaited bands whereby the burden could be carried on the back. And so many changes were made in Maori culture to suit local conditions. The approximation of one human race or tribe to another in culture or arts by contact has been termed ‘acculturation’. In acculturation, it is usually the weaker people who have to do most of the approximating. Between native tribes, the stronger will usually accept and adopt matters connected with fishing, fowling and local foods from a weaker tribe in prior occupation of the land, but the weaker tribe has to accept the systems of social organization and religion. Though acculturation has occurred among native peoples, the term is now usually applied to the changes and adjustments that are taking place between native people and the representatives of western culture, whether they be from Europe or America. It was to material things that the attention of the Maoris was first drawn by contact with early European voyagers. The voyagers brought goods as part of their stock in trade to barter for food and other needs. Steel hatchets, hoop iron and nails were quickly recognized as being vastly superior to stone tools and, as soon as the supply was adequate, the Maori left the Stone Age for the age of metals. But in spite of the change in material much of the native technique was retained. Hoop iron and plane blades took the place of the stone adze head, but they were attached to handles of Polynesian form and lashed in position with native cordage. Nails were better than shell or bone for fish-hooks, so they were beaten out and shaped to the native form and for many years they were preferred to the trade hooks. Traders followed the voyagers and tempted the Maoris with various articles such as textiles, guns, tobacco and alcohol. Missionaries also entered the field and carried a supply of goods for exchange or to pay for services rendered. When white settlement took place, increasing supplies of goods made further inroads into Maori material culture. The gun and the steel tomahawk supplanted the native weapons of wood, stone, whalebone and jade. Loom-woven prints, woollens and blankets gradually displaced garments that were finger-woven from flax fibre. The clothing was altered not only in material but also in form, and hats and shoes made a further approach toward western culture. The houses thatched with local plants were replaced by buildings of sawn timber and corrugated iron, but the assembly houses retained their native form. Windows were added for light and ventilation and the sunken earth floor gave way to the raised board floor on account of rheumatism. The craft of the wood carver disappeared, but has been revived by the establishment of a school of carving. Changes took place in regard to food. The yam disappeared, the taro lingers in some localities and the sweet potato is grown in smaller quantities than of yore. Their place has been taken by the introduced Irish potato, easier to cultivate and more prolific in a temperate climate. Flour and sugar became necessities. Tea displaced water as a beverage at meals, and the gourd water container disappeared before the complex of kettle, teapot, cup, saucer, milk jug, sugar basin and spoons. The further complex of dining rooms with their equipment of tables, chairs, table cloth, plates, dishes, knives, forks and spoons replaced the simple setting in which the people sat cross-legged on the ground and ate with their fingers from plaited flax platers. The iron cooking range with its iron pots and pans displaced the simple earth oven with its red-hot stones and cover of plaited mats and earth. It all seems simple and obvious, but the changes took time and the adjustments of native culture toward the western pattern are good examples of the process of acculturation going on. Another series of changes took place in religion. The Maoris brought with them the pattern of Polynesian religion, with major gods ruling over various departments of life and minor gods created locally by deifying certain ancestors. In central Polynesia, public worship was carried on at open temples with a paved court and a stone platform at one end. The stone platform (ahu) was the strictly religious part of the structure, near which the priests officiated, and the paved or gravelled court (marae) was where the select congregation gathered. The general term ‘marae’, however, was applied to the temple and it was used also for social purposes such as feasts and festivals. In New Zealand, the stone platform was represented by a stone pillar or post or even some natural outcrop of rock, all located outside the village. To this detached symbol of the altar the priest, alone or accompanied by an assistant, went to consult his god. The open court of the Polynesian temple was represented by the open space before the village assembly house, and it was here that all social functions took place. It retained the name of marae; and thus the religious and social functions of the Polynesian marae